The present invention relates to a peripheral control processor or input/output control processor in particular, for automotive, communications, and consumer product applications. Such a peripheral control processor can be generally a direct memory access controller with improved features. Usually, direct memory access controllers (DMA-controller) provide independent functions in a microprocessor controlled system. These DMA-controllers have limited functions and for advanced functions the main microprocessor in the system is needed. Many operations which are based on the transfer of data require simple or advanced modification of the data to be transferred or often the transfer is conditional and maybe stopped or interrupted upon different conditions. If these advanced criteria become too complex interaction between the DMA-controller and the microprocessor of the system is needed. Thus, the overall speed of the system is decreased or the microprocessor is blocked from executing other tasks. Also, the DMA-controller in such systems is only used in special tasks. For a significant period during the operation of the system it is not needed. Nevertheless, in present systems the DMA-control has to be active during these periods and therefore consumes power unnecessarily.